


Unrequited (only not really)

by saltysarah



Series: Dreamers [1]
Category: ACCA13区監察課 | ACCA 13-ku Kansatsuka
Genre: AU of an AU, All my headcanons, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Compliant Age Difference, Friends to Lovers, Hair Kink, Light Angst, M/M, Rated for the Last Chapter, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24957712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltysarah/pseuds/saltysarah
Summary: Wherein the object of Jean's affections shifts from an ideal to someone who was in equally unrequited love to someone who loved him more than he loved himself.Inspired by sleepwellbeasts' amazing modern AU - Gotta Get Mine (Gotta Get Yours)
Relationships: Grossular/Jean Otus (one-sided), Grossular/Lillium (background), Grossular/Mauve (ACCA) (one-sided), Mauve/Jean Otus (implied), Nino/Jean Otus
Series: Dreamers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917676
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	1. It's the Hangover Talking Until It Isn't

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gotta Get Mine (Gotta Get Yours)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206171) by [sleepwellbeasts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepwellbeasts/pseuds/sleepwellbeasts). 



> sleepwellbeasts' piece has to be one of my favourite in the fandom that I've read a good dozen times at least, even if I'm only getting off my arse to write something for it now. And even then I'm still taking liberties with canon, fanon, and my own headcanons ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 

“Grossular is a singularly brilliant man,” Mauve muttered morosely into her wineglass. “I don’t understand why he can’t see that Lillium is a snake in the grass.”

Jean fiddled with the stem of his own glass, equally melancholy. “He’s a fully grown man capable of making his own mistakes,” he offered. “They do say that love is blind.”

“In this case love would also have to be some dumb, deaf, and mute,” Mauve groused. Jean glanced at her, a little surprised at her ire.

“Professor Lillium is also incredibly brilliant,” he said, because that was the truth. There wasn’t another Political Science professor in the district, and possibly the whole kingdom, with his same incisive insight and bristling intellect. Lillium’s grand declarations and great leaps of logic reminded him of Mauve, even if he’d never admit it. Mostly because she'd take his words and shove them up his arse. 

“He’s also power-hungry and unapologetically a ladder-climber, although I can’t imagine how many ladders are left to climb for _Furawau’s Crowning Jewel,”_ Mauve said snidely.

She did have a point. Lillium’s family was essentially nobility: his older brother was the District Chief, and his younger brother was the Furawau’s District Representative. For someone purportedly uninvolved in politics, he was practically mired in them, and there was truth to the rumour that he’d both made and broken numerous careers during his long-standing tenure at Badon University.

Despite that, or in spite of it, he was easily the most visible member of his family – of Furawau District in its entirety – and their pride and joy. Jean didn’t pretend to understand it. He didn’t understand a lot of things, first on the list being Grossular’s single-minded devotion to Lillium to his own personal detriment, and it was clear Mauve didn’t either.

“We’re going to get more depressed the more we talk about it,” he said instead. The news of their – it wasn’t an affair, as neither party was married – _involvement_ had made headline news this morning, and he and Mauve had started drinking the moment their classes had ended. Technically, advisors were rarely if ever this friendly with their students, but Mauve had never bothered pretending his circumstances were anything but different.

Usually, this sort of announcement wouldn’t even make Page 6 as Grossular was obsessive about keeping out of the public eye, despite how highly regarded he was in academic circles. But when _Furawau’s Crowning Jewel_ decided to go public with their _decades-long relationship_ with their colleague, the Assistant Dean of Badon University – headlines were made and papers flew off the shelves.

Jean had gone into Mauve’s office first thing that morning to slap a copy of the damn thing on her desk. She’d promptly dismantled the smoke alarm and they’d chain-smoked a half-dozen cigarettes each before the start of class.

“I knew it wasn’t ever going to me,” Mauve sighed mournfully, “but why couldn't it have been anyone else? Literally anyone would've been better. Hell, I would've preferred _you_ _.”_

He bit back the flash of heat that thought aroused, imagining Grossular’s stern countenance softening into something tender, and what Jean wouldn’t give to sink his hands into those silver locks to see if they were as silky as they looked.

Mauve cast him a knowing look. “You were imagining it, weren’t you?”

Jean scowled – or at least came as close to scowling as he ever did. “Like you aren’t in the same boat.”

Mauve snorted, one corner of her mouth lifting as she gulped down the rest of her glass. “That’s god’s own truth.”

Jean hesitated, and then said, “His hair.”

Mauve actually _groaned,_ her eyes slipping close _._ “What I wouldn’t give to get my hands in it. I saw them, did I tell you?”

As a matter of fact, she had, but all Jean said was, “Tell me again.”

Mauve let out a wistful sigh. “They didn’t know I was there. I don’t think they would’ve cared even if they did. His head was bent and Lillium had a hand _tangled in his hair,_ and then he _brought it to his lips.”_

Jean swallowed tightly and shifted in his seat. “It- it doesn’t seem right thinking of him like _that,_ but-.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean,” Mauve sighed again. “I don’t- I won’t say I’d _sully_ him, because we aren’t prudes or teenagers, but he does seem quite above the mundane.” The fact that Grossular was never seen in anything outside of a full suit or his Rokksu ethnic wear didn’t help matters. “But I’d rather like to have his head in my lap so that I could pet him. Just watching him relax would be its own reward.”

Jean understood and related completely.

“Last chance,” Mauve said, leaning back in her seat. “I’m sure we can scrape together enough to send a killer-for-hire after Lillium.”

He snorted, taking her words as the cue to finish his own glass of wine. “Maybe you can, but I’m a broke university student. I can barely scrape together enough to pay for instant noodles.”

Mauve smiled, eyes crinkling. Neither of them mentioned Dowa. “Just enough for alcohol and cigarettes?”

“Aren’t those the 2 basic food groups?”

“You think you’re so funny,” Mauve said dryly. “Now run along, your babysitter is here.” Jean glanced over his shoulder to see Nino pull up along the curb on his motorcycle.

“I’m not sure I can ride that thing,” he admitted. They’d been drinking for the past 3 hours and he’d never been particularly good at holding his liquor in the first place.

“You’ll figure something out,” she dismissed. “Don’t worry about the tab this time, broke university student.”

“We can split-.”

“I said don’t worry about it.” Despite the firmness of her words, the air around her brow had cleared.

Jean stood and hesitated with a hand on the bar. “You’ll be able to get home on your own?”

Mauve waved a hand carelessly. “Don't worry; I’ll have someone call me a car.”

“I wasn’t worried, not exactly.” Mauve raised an eyebrow.

“Not exactly,” he repeated stubbornly. “Also, I needed to make sure I could stay upright long enough to walk out of here,” he added.

Mauve laughed in his face. “That sounds more like it. Now get out of here, Otus.”

He obeyed, stumbling out of the bar of alcohol-numbed feet and straight into Nino’s arms.

“Oof, you’re clumsy when you’re drunk,” the taller man murmured, his hot breath wafting against Jean's cheek in contrast to the cool evening air.

“But you’d be used to that, wouldn’t you?” Jean returned. “You get me drunk all the time.”

Nino secured a long arm around his waist and helped him those last few steps to his bike. “It sounds terrible when you put it like that.”

“And it isn’t terrible when you give your best friend weekly hangovers?”

“Well, I’m not the one with the hangover.” Nino leant against the seat of his bike and gently manoeuvred Jean to stand in between his legs. From there it was easy to tip forward and rest his throbbing head against Nino’s shoulder, the man’s arm still looped around his waist. “I take it this has to do with this morning’s headline news?”

Nino was a freelance photojournalist, Jean belatedly recalled. He couldn’t remember who wrote the article now and they’d only printed Grossular and Lillium's university profile photos in the paper.

“Did you know?”

Nino hesitated long enough for Jean to understand his answer, even drink-addled as he was.

“They weren't very good at hiding it,” Nino said at last.

“I didn’t know,” Jean said instead of anything else. “Neither did Mauve.”

Nino lightly stroked a hand over his hair. “Neither of you are particularly observant of either of them.”

Jean frowned. He thought he was _plenty_ observant of Grossular, thank you very much. He hadn’t realised he’d said that aloud until Nino started to chuckle, the man’s shoulder shifting under his head.

“Both of you are more interested in the papers he writes and his pretty, pretty hair,” Nino said. Jean pouted when he couldn’t actually deny that; god knew Nino had been around for many a drunken spiel exhorting said pretty, pretty hair.

“Professor Grossular is a singularly brilliant man.” He found himself parroting Mauve’s earlier words.

“No one said he wasn’t,” Nino coaxed, stroking his hair now. Jean drowsily nudged into his touch. “You’re both just too blinded by what he stands for to see him as the man he is.”

That was…an uncannily accurate assessment. He was in love with _Professor_ Grossular and was in love with the Mauve who was equally in unrequited hell alongside him. It was the worst, most awful case of idol worship where Jean would’ve been happy to sit in Grossular's lectures for the rest of his life, and maybe be allowed to pet him once in awhile. He knew Mauve agreed.

“But did it _have_ to be Professor Lillium?” he whined, the words muffled in Nino’s black turtleneck.

Nino laughed again, the arm around his waist tightening. “Grossular cares very much for Lillium.”

Jean frowned, hearing even through his drunken state the words Nino wasn’t saying.

“Does that mean Professor Lillium- no," he realised, thinking of the type of man Lillium was, "he’s proud to _own him.”_

It wouldn’t make sense to most, Lillium being _Furawau’s Crowning Jewel,_ but Grossular wasn’t that sort of person. He was stringently professional until he decided, somehow, that you were worthy of his regard, which led to him relaxing in microscopic increments.

The first time Jean had seen Grossular’s smile – the real one, not that purse-lipped excuse he gave the university photographers – he’d run halfway across campus to hyperventilate inside Mauve’s office. That she let him languish in the corner of her office with a knowing look told him everything he needed to know about her own reaction to Grossular's smile.

It didn’t look like much, just a softening of his lips and a lifting of thin brows, but it changed Grossular’s countenance completely and Jean didn't understand how more people weren't falling over themselves just looking at him. He was certain that if Grossular ever actually smiled – a full one, with crinkled eyes and bared teeth and mirth pouring out of his ears – he’d have a heart attack.

“That’s not right,” Jean heard himself say as if from a long ways away. “That’s not- that’s not fair to him, that’s not right at all.”

“And who are you to decide what’s right or not?” Nino gently asked, still stroking his hair. “Grossular’s a smart man, too. If he wants to be Lillium’s kept man – if he’s _happy_ there – that’s his choice.”

“Love is blind,” Jean whimpered, curling around his bruised, hurting heart.

Nino sighed and pressed his mouth to the crown of his head for a long moment. “It is, Jean. It really is.”

* * *

The hangover he’d awoken to the next morning had been nothing short of debilitating.

 _I want to die,_ he texted Mauve.

 _Is that the hangover or the situation talking?_ was her reply, a handful of moments later.

Jean paused, squinting at the small squiggly characters on his screen. He could hear Nino bustling around in the kitchen outside, likely toasting them both a thick slice of Mugimaki bread.

 _Mostly the hangover,_ was his eventual reply.

_I’m also mostly glad I didn’t call a hitman on the PoliSci Department Chair._

Jean smiled down at his phone and then rolled out of bed.

“Jean?” Nino called, knocking lightly at his door. “Are you alive in there?”

He pushed himself upright with a groan, wincing at the throb his head gave at the movement. “I’m getting there.”

* * *

“I told you a year ago that love was blind.”

Nino smiled at him. He’d seen thousands of Nino-smiles by this point to be an old familiar hand at them, but there was something about this one in particular that tugged at his belly.

“Yes, you did. About Grossular and Lillium, I believe.”

“Considering how _that_ turned out,” he muttered darkly, “Mauve should have just been the literal other woman.”

Nino raised his eyebrows. Jean pressed his lips together. “Fine. But I still contend that Professor Grossular would've been happier with anyone else." 

Nino nudged one brow a touch higher. “Never mind that he's never shown any sign of regret?” They both knew _regret_ was too plebeian a feeling for Furawau’s Crowning Jewel to indulge in.

Jean’s pout deepened. “If it could’ve saved him the heartbreak-.”

“There would’ve been some kind of break as long as his heart was involved,” Nino interrupted gently, his eyebrows thankfully returning to their original position. “Sometimes, you just have to let people make their own mistakes.”

Right. Which brought them back to the point Jean had been trying to make in the first place. Why did he let himself get led around the nose like this?

“You let me.”

Nino blinked in a way that told Jean he’d genuinely taken the other man by surprise.

“Love is blind,” he repeated, “and you let me make my own mistakes.”

“That wasn’t- I didn't meant-.”

“I know _you_ didn't,” he interrupted, because watching Nino stumble over his words made his heart ache. “But _I_ did - that was what I’d been getting at when I brought it up in the first place.”

“So when you say love is blind,” Nino began slowly.

“I’m talking about both of us,” Jean finished. “For one, I have no idea what you see in me or how you put up with me for this long.”

“Jean,” Nino started in the slow, somber tone that meant he was – all horror of horrors – _disappointed_. He quickly cut that off at the head.

“For another, I’m also an idiot who mistakes comfort for familiarity- or was it familiarity for comfort? It took me entirely too long to realise that I'm never going to be more myself than when I’m with you or Lotta. It’s not even a question – there are so many things that I do in front of you that I would never do in front of anyone else.”

Nino’s lips were pressed together so tightly that they were bloodless. “That’s familiarity speaking, Jean.”

He shrugged, not seeing any point in beating about the bush when he’d been unknowingly hemming and hawing over this for the past year already. “Maybe in another world we would have a similar relationship and it would be platonic. In this one, though, I want to wake up in your arms. You _are_ home, as much as Lotta is, if for very different reasons.”

Nino- Nino _blushed._

Jean took one step closer, right into Nino’s personal bubble. The taller man was clearly startled but made no movement to defend himself, which ought to have been telling of IA’s infamous Crow. Nino had a Jean-sized blindspot that was apparent to anyone who looked long and hard enough.

He simply wrapped his arms around Nino’s waist and tucked his head under Nino’s chin. They woke up like this, sometimes, whenever Jean had been a particularly recalcitrant drunk the night before and refused to let go when Nino tried to pour him into bed.

“There’s so much you don’t _know,”_ he whispered, sounding so pained that Jean had to tighten his arms around him.

“That’s alright,” he murmured, pressing his nose to the hinge of Nino’s jaw. He’d missed a spot shaving this morning, and there was a little patch of blue stubble there, a shade darker than the hair on his head. “We have the rest of our lives for you to tell me.”


	2. Our Beginning Starts at the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their relationship develops, and then some.

Because Nino had never once believed in making anything easier for himself, he refused to get together until he could ascertain for himself that he wasn’t Jean’s rebound after Grossular and Mauve. Or Mauve because of Grossular. In Jean’s mind, the 2 were intrinsically linked.

But there was one very important difference between his feelings for Grossular and Nino.

“I’ve never considered Professor Grossular naked,” Jean said bluntly over breakfast the next morning. Nino choked on his coffee.

“I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him in shirtsleeves,” he thought aloud. “Thinking of Professor Grossular without clothes would be…an aberration.” He might have daydreamt of the man in his own time, but mostly about that beautiful, luxurious hair and that soul-deep voice quoting Euripides in the original Greek.

That definitely wasn't what he wanted from Nino.

He patiently waited as the older man coughed out the last of the coffee that had gone down the wrong pipe.

“What about Mauve?” Nino eventually managed to ask, his voice hoarse. Jean barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes; the man really didn’t like making things easy for himself.

“Liking Mauve was a side effect of liking Professor Grossular,” he replied.

Nino’s lips quirked. “You do realise that doesn’t make any sense? If liking anyone was a side effect of liking Grossular, it should be he-who-must-not-be-named.”

Jean scowled, ignoring how Lotta had told him his scowl looked a lot like a pout. “I’m pretty sure the only people in this kingdom who like that man are his family and Professor Grossular.” He’d never understood how Lillium had managed to eel out of that scandal unscathed, even if he had resigned from his professorship to return to his home district. The only virtue of his leaving had been his and Grossular’s physical separation, but as far as Jean knew, the 2 of them were still going strong, if long-distance.

“He’s Furawau’s Crowning Jewel,” Nino pointed out.

And Lillium would likely continue to be such until he died. Furawau adored Lillium and his brothers like they did their flowers, like it was as imperative as breathing, like it was a matter of fact.

“But they don’t _know_ him,” Jean protested, not quite certain how else to put it, especially since he hadn’t exactly been in extended contact with the man.

Nino smiled, hand twitching by his side.

“Maybe,” he allowed. “Besides, I think we were talking about Mauve.”

Jean wrinkled his nose. “I still think you don’t make sense.”

Nino’s face softened. “Just- maybe- try?” The _for me_ went unsaid because Nino was not only awful at making things easier for himself, he was also awful at asking for things for himself.

Jean huffed, letting his forehead fall on Nino’s shoulder. It was starting to become a familiar action for them, the additional physicality still novel when they’d been so careful to keep things between them platonic. Nino reached up to touch his hair, sifting through the blond strands. When Nino’s hand stilled, Jean pointedly head-butted him. Nino chuckled and began to stroke again.

A thought occurred to him. 

“If anything, I ought to ask if _you_ want this,” he said. “I said I couldn’t see myself do anything but pet Professor Grossular’s hair, right? Is that the same for you? Do you want to see _me_ naked?”

Nino stiffened.

“Oh,” Jean realised, “I suppose you must have, at some point,” during all his surveillance.

“Never intentionally,” Nino said quickly. He was looking away, jaw tight, and his hand fell from Jean’s hair. “It wasn’t- I wouldn’t do that.”

“I trust you,” he said. As blunt as he could be, he didn’t like saying this outright, mostly because Nino didn't like hearing it, always pulled that same pained face.

“You’re not answering my question, either,” Jean continued. “Your having accidentally seen me naked in the past doesn’t mean you want to now.”

Nino cleared his throat, a hint of pink on his cheeks. “Could we- could we talk about Mauve, first?”

Jean frowned. Thinking about Mauve naked was wrong, too, even if he’d nearly walked into traffic that one time he saw her on her way to dinner, dressed to the nines and her thin ankles appearing inexplicably vulnerable in their high-heeled sandals. To him, Mauve was a caustic voice and knowing eyes, just as buttoned up and untouchable as Grossular in her own way.

“I liked Mauve because we were in the same place at the same time, and that made us…understand each other better,” he said slowly.

“So it was…empathy?” Nino asked.

“If you call empathy daydreaming about Professor Grossular’s hair,” he replied wryly. Or the way he’d revolutionised his field of study. Or how thin his eyelids were, and that his eyelashes were the same silvery shade as his hair- anything Grossular-related, actually. “If Professor Grossular had ended up with Mauve out of everyone else, I wouldn’t have minded it as much, and vice versa.” He gave Nino a lopsided smile. “We all know how that ended, but that was the basis of our understanding.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you 2,” Nino murmured.

“I’ve moved on,” Jean said point-blank, because Nino wouldn’t get it otherwise. It was still a bit of a toss-up if Nino would accept his words at face value; see the above about Nino making things needlessly difficult for himself. “So has Mauve. In fact, out of the 3 of us, the only one who hasn’t is Professor Grossular, regardless of what either of us would like. Not that we’ve ever said as much to him,” he added.

“You want Grossular to move on?” Nino pressed. “Preferably…with one of you?”

Jean closed his eyes and prayed to a higher being he did not believe in for patience. When he felt in control of himself, he opened his eyes and sighed at the well-hidden trepidation on Nino’s face.

“Weren’t you the one who said that Professor Grossular was a fully grown man capable of making his own mistakes? Or maybe that was me Either way, the sentiment still stands,” he said. “He’s made his bed with Lillium; if that’s who he wants to lie with, that’s his prerogative.” Jean frowned. “That came out more suggestive than I intended.” He did not want to think about either Grossular or Lillium in that manner, or Grossular and Lillium together. 

“I’m sorry,” Nino said quietly, although he didn’t move the arm that had found its way around Jean’s waist. “I can tell you’re getting frustrated, but it’ll take some time for me to wrap my head around the fact that…you’re thinking of me in such a way. Part of it is our history, but part of it is also having heard you wax lyrical about both professors’s hair for the past few years.” Nino smiled faintly. “Way to give someone a complex.”

“I like your hair,” he said thoughtlessly. “I’ve always thought the colour suited you. And it makes sense that I react differently to each of you, don’t you think? Or you might think that I have a _hair thing_ and not the people attached to it.”

Nino’s face softened and his hand rose to settle in his hair again. Jean made a contented sound and tilted his head to give him greater access. Nino’s hand briefly flexed before resuming gentle strokes, nails never once scraping his scalp. And that was the thing about Nino: photographer, spy, Internal Affairs officer, and friend – Jean didn’t know what he was like out of sight, but he was unimaginably tender to anyone with Otus in the name.

“I think I have a thing for your hair,” Nino murmured. He lightly scratched along the curve of Jean’s skull. “I’ll get there,” he promised. “It’s not entirely fair to you because these are my hang-ups, not yours. But I’ll get there.”

Jean turned to hide his glowing face against Nino’s neck. He knew he would. They both would.

* * *

They got there.

And then Jean _got some._

He would have laughed at his terrible joke if he was that sort of person, but he mostly just chuckled, curled sweaty and sated against Nino’s equally naked body.

“Does the age difference bother you?” Nino asked abruptly.

Jean looked up. This close, he supposed there were signs of Nino’s true age, especially now that he'd removed his glasses after their lenses kept fogging up from the combined heat of their bodies. It would be hypocritical if he minded, though, given how Mauve was older than Nino and Grossular was at _least_ twice Jean's age. He wasn't a teenager anymore. 

“I think that’s my line,” he replied.

Nino’s face twitched, which was as good as a tell.

“Do you think it makes a difference, you having watched me grow up?” he asked.

“I think it has to,” Nino said tiredly.

“Lovers grow up together every day,” Jean said. “Well, not grow _together,_ but you know what I mean.”

Nino made an amused huff, adjusting the arm slung around his waist. “I think childhood sweethearts are usually aware of each _other.”_

“Usually,” Jean pointed out, pushing Nino onto his back so that he could sprawl on top of him, needling his sternum with the point of his chin. “But ‘usual’ doesn’t really apply here.”

Nino’s face went helplessly soft and he carded his fingers through Jean’s hair. “No,” he murmured, “I suppose not.”

Now that that was done and dusted with (for now), Jean stared pointedly. “Kiss me.”

Nino laughed, hand fully sliding into his hair to cup his head. “As His Majesty commands.”

“I’m not-.”

"Dowa's crown looked good on you that one time," Nino teased before he flipped them without warning, pressing Jean into their bed with more than his mouth. Jean groaned, holding onto Nino’s upper arms and arching his back. He hooked one leg over Nino’s hip, gasping when that lined their hips up.

“Again?” he panted.

“Have mercy on your elders,” Nino murmured, rubbing his lips against Jean’s cheek. He laughed, pulling Nino more fully against him.

“I think that’s my line,” he said again. “You’re the one who- _unf-_ the one- _ah-!”_

His thighs were trembling, parted to allow Nino and his clever, talented hands to settle between them. Nino carefully probed at him and Jean still felt tender and open, but not enough to object. Nino stretched over him to reach for the lube where they'd chucked it sometime last night and Jean settled back against their pillows, hazily gazing up at that expanse of pale skin.

Someone had said once that he and Lotta had been such fair, sunshine children, but their skin tones were pinker compared to Nino’s own moon-pale skin. He freckled and burnt under the sun while Nino stayed as untouched as ever. Or almost untouched. There was just-.

He hadn’t realised he’d raised his hand until his fingertips met the raised skin of a scar. Nino was untouched except for 2 little dark red pock marks, barely visible from the front and clearly present on his back.

Nino settled onto his haunches, holding Jean’s hand to his chest.

“This bothers you more than the years between us, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does,” he replied immediately. “How many times, Nino?”

The older man blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“This can’t have been the first time, just the most…obvious one,” Jean pointed out. “How many times have you saved my life – saved _our lives –_ without us ever knowing?”

Nino paused for a long moment, gazing down at him with an almost lost look on his face. Then he smiled, a small private thing that lifted his eyes more than his mouth. Nino’s hand tightened over his and then he gently moved Jean’s hand to his knee instead.

“You can think of it as an extension of self-preservation,” he replied. “I wouldn't have known what to do without you." 

Jean frowned, Abend's devotion hanging wordlessly over them. “You don’t owe Dowa anything,” he returned, deliberately misunderstanding because the alternative was too much, even for him.

Nino just smiled, knowingly, and bent to kiss him.

“You know what the worst thing is?” Jean asked once they parted. His hands had gone to drape themselves over Nino’s broad shoulders, undoubtedly a man's breadth to them and the width of his lats, tapering sharply to a slim waist. But there was a youth’s narrowness to them, too, ribs just visible under his abs and obliques. It wasn’t due to a lack of food, either; Nino was just build like a weed.

A strong weed.

A bamboo?

Jean chuckled to himself. It seemed like his metaphor had run away from him.

“The worst thing?” Nino breathed against his lips, a moment before he kissed him again. Jean smiled into the kiss and opened his mouth, just savouring the heat and warmth of it. “That you laugh at me between kisses?”

Jean’s smile widened and he playfully nibbled on Nino’s bottom lip. Nino indulged him for a moment, the cobalt of his eyes darkening before he pulled away with the lube in hand. He took his time to rearrange them, Jean’s limbs lax and heavy with mellow arousal.

“The worst thing,” he murmured to himself, the words lingering in his mouth like cigarette smoke. He hummed quietly when Nino’s slick fingers tested the rim of his hole and then pressed straight in. Jean exhaled, tilting his hips up and taking Nino’s fingers – 2 of them, it felt like – to the root. He tightened around them, nostrils flaring at the way his body rearranged himself for Nino.

The man had _reinvented_ himself for Jean. This was the least he could do, not that he was counting.

“I don’t need a third,” he said, letting his thighs fall open more. Nino swallowed and the heavy, familiar weight of his gaze turned syrupy with want.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Nino murmured, fingers lingering. Jean clenched again and Nino’s mouth fell open, the red of his mouth stark against his white teeth.

“You won’t,” Jean said, urging Nino forward with his hands. “I want you, Nino.”

Nino squeezed his eyes shut. “Condom,” he grated out, stretching out again.

Jean settled back down, relenting now that he’d gotten what he wanted. Nino gently massaged his balls, smearing the rest of the lube on the base of Jean's cock before he went to open the condom packet with marginally cleaner hands.

“Oh,” Jean sighed, reaching for his own cock, slick with lube and the precum dribbling out of the slit. He didn’t touch himself very often, disliking how exhausted orgasms made him while knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he cleaned himself up after, too. It was different, though, with Nino there.

Everything was different, with Nino there.

“The worst thing,” he said again, mind wandering back even as he took himself fully in hand, “is that I wouldn’t even ask, wouldn’t have to ask. No, I would never ask it of you,” he realised, “but you’d do it all over again anyway.”

Nino smiled and didn’t protest. He couldn’t, not without lying.

Jean watched him put the condom on, grease himself with a touch more lube, and had to keep a firm hand around the base of his own cock to keep from coming prematurely.

“The worst thing,” Nino agreed, and kissed him the same time he pressed the head of his cock to his hole. Jean sighed into his mouth and shifted his hips, exhaling as he savoured the feeling of Nino spreading him open with his cock. It was quite long but not overly thick, and there was a visible curve to it that managed to find every one of Jean’s sweet spots.

“You should skip the fingers and open me up with your cock next time,” he said.

Nino’s hips jerked roughly and he bit off a curse. Jean almost tensed at the sudden press against his prostate, but he was too relaxed to do much else but breathlessly laugh at the chiding look on Nino’s face.

“Could you- not say these things?”

Jean smiled up at him, sliding his free hand against Nino’s cheek. At this hour, his stubble had started to grow back in, although it wasn’t quite visible in the dim light. “But I want to say them,” he said. “I want you to hear them.”

Nino groaned, rolling his hips. Jean closed his eyes, letting his hand slide off Nino’s face.

“You’re too good to me.”

“I could never be more than what you deserve.”

Because therein lay the crux of the matter – all of their issues with _age_ and _gunshots_ had the same root. Nino valued himself because of _Jean’s_ valuation of him, but Nino would never value himself above Jean. It was there in the downturned tilt of Nino’s brows even as his kiss-swollen mouth curled.

Nino’s hands ran up his chest, almost tickling over his ribs before pinching his nipples, hard.

“Ni-no,” he growled.

The man’s smile widened into something more genuine as he smoothed his hands over his waist, grip tightening. Jean let his head drop back, looking up at Nino from under his lashes.

“Yes,” he said.

Nino’s lips parted, revealing his teeth. “I didn’t ask you anything.”

“I answered anyway,” Jean retorted, rolling his hips back against Nino.

“You’re a horror,” Nino growled, leaning over him as his thrusts picked up their pace.

“You love me anyway,” he replied daringly. “Maybe because of it.”

Nino laughed breathlessly. “Yes,” he echoed, “yes.”

“I didn’t ask you a question,” Jean repeated cheekily, pulling Nino down into a kiss, arching up to rub their sweaty chests against each other. He let go of his cock in favour of clinging to the man, more than content with the way Nino's cock opened him up and pressed against his prostate.

Nino sucked on his tongue in lieu of an answer. Jean wrapped his legs around Nino’s back, heels digging into the man’s taut arse. Why in the world was this called the missionary position? Jean could not feel less pious in this moment, unless it was to the church of sex where Nino was the high priest.

Maybe another person would have been bothered by not having another frame of reference, but Jean didn’t see why he should care, not when he’d been lucky enough to hit jackpot on the first try. He put his hands flat over Nino’s back, running his palms over the knots and bumps where Nino's skin was stretched tightly over bone, lingering at the twin nuggets of puckered skin that marked the passage of the bullets that had been meant for him.

Jean slid his hands lower, rubbing his thumbs over the sharp edge of Nino’s hipbones before grabbing 2 handfuls of that lovely, strong arse, feeling the way it flexed and bunched under his touch. He massaged Nino’s arse thoughtfully.

“I’ve never,” he thought aloud.

Nino paused, pulling back enough to look him in the eye. “Would you like to?”

“Not now,” Jean grumbled, pointedly rolling his hips.

Nino grinned down at him, grounding their hips together so filthily it stole his breath and flung him to the edge in a matter of seconds.

“We can revisit this when you’re next _up_ for it,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at him.

Jean still found it in himself to laugh, no matter how painfully aroused he was. Nino kissed him again, keeping up those dirty grinding motions that had Jean’s hard cock sliding against his equally hard abs. In a matter of minutes Jean was gasping for breath, scrabbling at Nino’s shoulders while he bucked up desperately. Then his arse was convulsing, cock spurting as he came all over himself.

He keened, long and pained as Nino picked up his pace, mindlessly chasing his own pleasure. Jean couldn’t come again this soon and he was already starting to ache, his poor abused prostate over-stimulated by the way Nino hammered home each and every time. It was bordering on too much and doing _anything_ tomorrow was going to be a bitch, but that was for Tomorrow’s Jean to worry about. Today’s Jean just wanted more of this being surrounded and overwhelmed by Nino.

The sights, the sounds, the smells of sex: the dark flush high on Nino's cheeks, the wet squelch between their bodies, the musky scent of semen and sweat, and most of all, the way his arse clung to Nino every time the man pulled out, regardless of how raw he already felt.

…yes, they would definitely have to revisit Nino bypassing fingering him open the next time.

Nino finally pushed in one last time, pelvis flush against his arse as his hips stuttered, and he came. They hadn’t had sex without condoms, either, more bothered by the mess than any possibility of disease, but Jean rather thought the mess might be worth it, to feel the pulse of Nino’s wet heat inside him, to clench down and relax only to feel the man's semen seep out of him.

He only realised he’d clenched down for real when Nino hissed, wincing as he gingerly withdrew his sensitive cock. Jean eyed the filled condom as Nino knotted it off and pitched it into the bin.

“We should try this without condoms, too,” he said, raising an eyebrow when Nino groaned and his spent cock twitched, still glistening with his own semen.

“Give me a moment to recover,” Nino muttered, rolling to his feet and tottering clumsily to the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth and a clean cock. He mopped up the puddle on Jean’s belly and dragged the cloth between his arse, gathering up the remaining slick and mess. Jean watched him work, obligingly shifting his tired limbs where Nino indicated.

Task complete, Nino headed back to the bathroom to rinse off the washcloth. This time, when he came back, he stood at the side of their bed for a long moment, watching him intently. Jean looked back at him as evenly as he could, blinking sticky lids.

His eyes had slid shut by the time Nino reached out, which caused him to start at the touch on his mouth. The look in Nino’s eyes was apologetic but his mouth said, “I’ve created a monster.”

Jean grumbled, tugging Nino into bed and promptly sprawling all over him. “At least let me get the covers, Jean,” Nino chuckled, easily manhandling him into place.

When they lay side-by-side, blankets up to their waists, Jean said, “You didn’t create a monster; you just want to give me everything I want.” He peeked open one eye to see Nino’s darker gaze already fixed on him. “Do you think that’s a bad thing?”

“I’m not the best person to ask,” Nino replied ruefully. “I’m quite interested in all those things you want, too.”

Jean smiled, smug as a cat that had gotten its canary _and_ cream. He could hear Nino chuckling at him and then there was a hand in his hair, lightly stroking.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered.

He felt the curve of Nino’s lips against his skin in the kiss he pressed to his temple.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

* * *

(Tomorrow’s Jean couldn’t even get out of bed without pain lancing up his back and spent a good 10 minutes creatively cursing out Yesterday’s Jean. When she heard, Lotta wouldn’t stop laughing. Nino apologised once and then spent the whole day playing lackey, even ringing Owl to make his excuses for him, but he couldn’t hide the pleased edge to his smile when he thought Jean wasn’t looking.

_Honestly._

…Jean loved him anyway.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done. I whacked this whole thing out in a handful of days, overtaken by ACCA feels. I love Ono-sensei's work, which was just drew me to ACCA in the first place, and then there was something quietly mystifying about these characters that I just couldn't get enough of. Another huge thank you to sleepwellbeasts, whose fic gave me headcanons I didn't even knew I needed <3
> 
> I'm still very enamoured by these 2 and their dynamic. At this point, though, I fear I'm incapable of writing porn without at least a smidgen of an excuse for plot.


End file.
